Supersonic airliner.

WASHINGTON -- Eight college students have summer jobs at NASA this year, thanks to their participation in a contest to design a supersonic airliner.

College students from the U.S., Japan and India researched technology and created concepts for a supersonic passenger jet as part of a competition sponsored by the Fundamental Aeronautics Program in NASA's Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate.

Great news,...But the question is whether they be succeed or not. NASA is desperate to develop a Supersonic airliner. They are many Civillian purpose project in which NASA is working on.

Building a Supersonic airliner was started way long back in Cold War era.
Like the space race, US and Soviet had engaged in race to build a Best Supersonic Airliner. At the beginning the Race between the two cold war enemies to built the first Supersonic Airliner was looking bright but later Ended up Dead. They are lot of crashes and loss of life in this race.

-The Americans responded with Boieng 2707, which is offcourse was limited to paperwork only.
-The Soviet responded with Tu-144, The only other supersonic airliner in direct competition with Concorde was the Soviet Tupolev Tu-144.
-The Europe responded with Concorde, Which has quiet success rate compare to other two airliners.

One thing is for sure, in the future there will be more and more people wanting to travel long distances at cost effective prices. Developments of these kind of programs wont be halted.